116 MACWORLD AUGUST 2021
PLAYLIST REVIEW: BEATS STUDIO BUDSstayed in my ears just fine while
skateboarding around my neighborhood
and going for a light jog, though the fit
loosened just a little as I got sweaty.
They are splash and sweat resistant, but
not waterproof.
I have a problem maintaining a
comfortable fit with the AirPods Pro over
long periods, while the Studio Buds just
disappear in my ears and never seem to
need adjustment.
Beats promises an 8-hour battery life,
with enough power in the case to
recharge the buds twice. That seemed a
little optimistic in my testing, but not by
too much—battery life is quite good. You’ll
lose about a quarter of your battery life
with noise cancellation enabled, but that’s
to be expected.
I also appreciate the physical button on
each earbud. They’re actual clicky buttons
rather than capacitive touch controls,
which is better for winter hats and sweaty
workouts. Apple is overthinking things with
AirPods’ touch controls, and sometimes
the old ways are best. The controls are the
same on each ear, and follow the standard
headphone control format—one click to
play/pause, two to skip forward, three to
skip back, and a long press to toggle
noise-canceling modes.BOTTOM LINE
Speaking of noise canceling, the feature’s
good but not as good as the AirPods Pro’s.
Apple’s earbuds do a better job of
eliminating outside traffic noise than these
Beats buds do, and the transparency mode
sounds more natural as
well. The noise canceling
is worthwhile, but a step
behind the state of the art
from Apple or Sony.
Sound quality is quite
good for such compact
Bluetooth buds. They’re
not as bass-heavy as
some Beats products are,
perhaps by design and
possibly as a
consequence of the small
earbud drivers. There’s
still plenty of kick whereYou can select what the long-press action does (Noise Control or
Siri) for left and right ears, but you cannot otherwise change how
the buttons work.